


The Boy Who Stayed

by grav_ity



Series: Before and After [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-29
Updated: 2007-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/pseuds/grav_ity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wars are fought on many fronts, and you have to beat yourself first of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy Who Stayed

**Author's Note:**

> I should note here that I love the relationship between Neville, Harry and all the might have beens. Was Bellatrix torturing the Longbottoms as the Potters were dying? If it had been the other way around, if Bellatrix had gone to the Potters, would Neville be TCO? Did Snape intercede at some point to make sure that Voldemort and not the favourite, mad lieutenent went to Godric's Hollow?
> 
> Anyway, there is fic:
> 
> AN: It is now eight minutes after midnight. I really wish my brain would stop having conversations with fictional people!
> 
> Disclaimer: Again, not mine.
> 
> Rating: Kid friendly, mild Neville/Luna (if you’re wearing ‘shipper goggles)

****

The Boy Who Stayed

 **Before**

Leaving aside the incident with the dragon during first year and the fallout of the first attempt at forming Dumbledore’s army, Neville hadn’t spent a lot of time in detention. He’d heard about it from the others, of course, cleaning without magic or cataloguing, those horrible hours Harry had spent answering Professor Lockhart’s fan mail, but he realized as Amycus Carrow lined him, Seamus, Michael and a quaking Colin Creevey up in front of a line of snickering Slytherins that this detention was about to break into entirely new territory.

New territory wasn’t exactly Neville’s forte. He was the first member of his family to be Sorted into Gryffindor (this had caused a great deal of talk over his first Christmas break home. Nearly everyone was certain that the Hat had gone around the bend and made a mistake), but school houses mattered less this year. This year it was about your blood and your family and how far you could trace both of them back. Neville had no issues with blood, they didn’t come much truer than the Longbottoms, but this year he was finally starting to come to grips with his family.

The Battle of Hogwarts began on the first of September when Ginny smuggled Luna into the Gryffindor tower. They met in Neville and Seamus’ room, trying their best to ignore the three empty beds, and plotted. Dobby kept winking in and out of the room with tea and cookies (the Welcome Banquet had been held under a thunderstruck ceiling in near darkness and the only person who dared to speak above a whisper was Draco Malfoy), stopping every now and then to plump Harry’s pillow or re-tie the curtains around Dean’s bed claiming that “Master Thomas doesn’t like to be closed in”.

Their first attack, on September second, resulted in the cancellation of classes for the day due to extreme flooding (Ginny had learned how to re-spread her brothers’ swamp, kept faithfully the last year by Professor Flitwick) on the bottom three floors of the castle. Their first detention had been in the Forbidden Forest, wandless, but Neville thought it was an able way to start. This had been Harry’s first detention too and he’d certainly gone places since that night.

There had been dozens of attacks since that night and the night that brought him face to face with a maniacal Pansy Parkinson and in that time Neville had become something of a hero. Yes, Harry was the Boy Who Lived, who was right now off doing something to fight the way, but Neville was the Boy Who Stayed and to the children of Hogwarts, he was leader, comforter and friend.

After that Christmas at St. Mungo’s, Neville had been much more open about his parents’ fate. After the battle in the Ministry, when he’d looked Bellatrix Lestrange in the eye and seen the full extent of her madness, he realized what his parents had faced to protect him. When Pansy looked at him with a mad gleam in her eyes and raised her eyes to cast the spell she’d just been taught, Neville Francis Longbottom closed his eyes and thought about his parents. They had survived. And so would he.

“Crucio!”

\------

 **After**

Neville wiped his eyes. The bodies were all laid out in the Great Hall and people were starting to drift away to find a place to rest. Gran was in the infirmary helping Madame Pomfrey and Neville was alone again. The thrill of victory, of slaying the final horcrux, had worn off and Neville was tired and young and hopelessly old all at the same time.

“What’s wrong, Neville?” Ginny plopped down beside him on the stairs. They’d been scourgified, but she was sitting in the exact place Lavender Brown had breathed her last and died of werewolf inflicted wounds.

“It’s nothing, really” Neville said, trying to compose himself. “It’s just silly.”

“What’s silly?” Luna asked, sitting delicately down on his other side. “Have you been infected with the venom of a Swackling Sabbot? They haunt battlegrounds, you know, and target the survivors.”

“No,” sighed Neville in a practiced manner, “I don’t think it’s Swackling Sabbots.”

“Come on, Neville.” Ginny said with a small smile. “This isn’t the night to bear things alone.”

“It’s Trevor,” he admitted finally. “I---I know toads don’t live that long and I have had him for years, but…I didn’t have time to get him when I ran to the Room of Requirement. I’d hoped someone else in the Tower would see him and take care of him for me.”

“I’m sorry, Neville.” Ginny said softly. “That was the gift they gave you when you got your letter, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, he was.”

“I’m sorry he’s lost.”

“He’s not lost.” Neville opened his hands and revealed a crushed toad within them. “He must have been in the room that fell on T—that fell during the fight. The wall crushed him too.”

“Oh, Neville,” said Ginny, tears in her eyes.

“Listen to me,” said Neville suddenly, “Blubbering on about my toad when you’ve lost your…”

He cut off sharply when Luna suddenly threw her arms about his neck and hugged him tightly. Neville froze but Ginny smirked and looked away.

“We’ll set him in the Great Hall with the others,” Luna said in a determined voice. “We’ll bury him tomorrow.”

“In the Castle?”

“Why not?” said Ginny. Neville worked an arm free and put it around her shoulder, linking the defenders of Hogwarts.

“We could put him in the Greenhouse,” said Luna. “If we bury him in the roots of Twaykle bush, it will discourage the spread of Twayk-rot.”

“Where’d you learn that?” Ginny asked, overcome with curiosity in spite of herself.

“Herbology!” Neville said, laughing, “It’s part of sixth-year lessons.”

“You were out that day,” Luna said kindly, “The Carrows were talking to you about that…thing.”

“Was that the one with all the dungbombs?” Ginny asked. Neville nodded and the three of them fell to laughing again.

“It was a pretty bad year, wasn’t it?” said Neville.

“I don’t know,” said Ginny, “This year we just faced the end of the world. Next year, we’ll all have to write our N.E.W.T.s”

In the Great Hall, Minerva McGonagall and Sir Nicholas kept watch over the fallen of Hogwarts and listened to the laughter of the hope of the future drifting in from the steps.

\------

 **finis**

**Author's Note:**

> Gravity_Not_Included, July 29, 2007


End file.
